Mohitz on bridge

Crucial day

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 11:34:00 +0000

We drew 15-15 against Argentina and lost 11-19 to France. France could have been much worse as me and prajwal had a horrible set against Bessis and Volcker but Raghu - Anurag saved the day.

Its early morning here in Philadelphia. We have to play our last two round robin matches against 12th placed Canada and 15th placed Japan. We are in 4th spot right now but the competition is really tight and we can't afford to take the next 2 matches lightly.

Here is the tally so far

It is not clear how many boards we play in the quarter finals. It seems the number of sessions has changed from 4 to 2 sessions. The number of boards is unclear but we suspect its 20x2.

As before, running scores are available on http://www.bridgewinners.com/running-live-scores.

Final stages

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 21:00:00 +0000

We had a great start to Day 3 winning all of the first three matches comfortably. We defeated Norway 25-5 and then followed up with a 23-7 win over China Hong Kong. Russia was defeated 18-12.

At the end of round 13, we are in 3rd spot tied with the Netherlands. Israel is topping the league followed by USA1. We have some cushion but still have 4 important matches. 2 today versus Argentina and a very strong France team and 2 tomorrow morning against Canada and Japan.

We want to qualify comfortably so as to get the right to choose opponents for the quarter finals which also begins tomorrow. The QF is 10x4.

The match against Argentina has started and at the time of writing this post, the score was 16-11 in favor of the Argentinians after 3 boards. You can follow the live score at http://www.bridgewinners.com/running-live-scores

End of Day 2

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 12:31:00 +0000

Day 2 was mixed. We had good wins against top placed USA1 and Germany. Had a bad loss against USA2. At the end of round 10, we are at 12th position with 143 VPs. We still have 7 rounds to go and if we have a good day today, chances of qualifying are still bright.

Our matches today are against Norway, China HK, Russia, Argentina and France in that order. The first 4 teams are mostly in the same place as us in the competition. So, these matches are very important for the team's fate.

Here is a screenshot of the ranking after ten rounds. Running scores are available on www.bridgewinners.com.

Let the games begin

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 12:27:00 +0000

The tournament starts in less than two hours. Our first match is against Israel and we are fielding the following two pairs.

Anurag - Raghvendra
Prajwal - Mohit

The remaining matches for today are Netherlands, Brazil, Australia and Italy in that order. It rates to be a tough day. Running scores will be available at www.bridgewinners.com.

World Youth Championships 2010

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 04:24:00 +0000

The World Junior championships(the Ortiz Patino cup) starts in Philadelphia on October 10th. 18 countries selected from the 7 WBF zones will compete for the title. We have a all play all 10 board round robin league after which the top 8 teams play a 40 board knock out Quarter finals. The semi finals and finals are 48 and 64 boards respectively.

I will be playing for India in a partnership with Prajwal. We will be playing in a 2/1 setting with some artificial followups. Our other partnerships are

Guthi Rajashekhar and Vinoth Raghavan
Anurag Mohota and Raghavendra Rajkumar

Guthi - Vinoth play 2/1 with balanced 1C and transfer responses to 1C. Anurag and Raghavendra play a 17+ strong club. I think we have prepared a lot and are hoping to do well in the tournament.

You can find more details about the tournament at the tournament website. Find the list of countries participating in the youth championships here. The draws for the round robin(ortiz patino cup) is available here.

System registered by the pairs from the different countries is available here. The results will be available here.

I will be try to blog from the venue and present live updates on the blog. Till then hasta la vista, baby!

Scissors coup

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 04:52:00 +0000

Here is a nice hand from BBO. IMPs, none vulnerable, you deal and pick up

♠AQTxx ♥Ax ♦x ♣K97xx.

Naturally, you open 1♠. Your LHO bids 2♥. Partner bids 2♠. RHO doubles showing the minors and you decide to overbid(as always) to 4♠. This ends the auction.

West	North	East	South
			1♠
2♥	2♠	X	4♠
Pass	Pass	Pass

LHO leads the 2 of clubs and this is what you see.

Lead: 2♣

Contract: 4♠ by South

♠ K8x

♥ xxx

♦ T9xx

♣ A8x

♠ AQTxx

♥ Ax

♦ x

♣ K97xx

How do you play?

Obviously, LHO has led a singleton. Since, there are 8 hearts missing and East did not support hearts, LHO is marked with at least 6 hearts as well. We know from the lead, East has 4 clubs and at most 2 hearts. For his responsive double, he must have at least 4 diamonds. Hence, LHO is likely to be 3631 or 2641.

We have a loser in each red suit and need to be able to play the club suit for 1 loser. Since, clubs are 4-1 and East has QJTx in clubs, it is necessary to be able to ruff a club. Trumps appear to be 3-2 either way, so there is no worry there. So, the plan seems to be to get 5 trump tricks, Ace of heart, 3 club tricks and a club ruff.

What is the problem with this plan?

LHO is also short in clubs. He might be able to ruff a club winner.

How do we overcome this problem?

We win the lead in hand with the King and lead a club. If LHO ruffs, we will just throw our club loser from dummy, win the return and remove trumps. In effect, LHO would be 'ruffing air'. If he doesn't ruff, we just take the Ace of club and play back another club. We win the heart return and ruff the 4th club in dummy over-ruffing if necessary.

Is there any issue with this plan?

Yes, when you lead a low club, LHO might ruff, play a small diamond to RHO who returns a club back for another ruff. The defense then can wait for a heart trick which isn't going anywhere.

Can we overcome this issue?

Yes, by cutting off their communication. Win the lead in hand and play a diamond executing the scissors coup The defense is helpless now. If RHO wins and returns a club, you win the Ace depending on whether or not LHO ruffed this. If they return anything else, you win in hand and play low club.

Dormer on Deduction: First look

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Mon, 17 May 2010 10:13:00 +0000

I was recently playing against Amarnath Banerjee on BBO and he recommended the book 'Dormer on deduction' saying it is a must read book. I respect AN Banerjee a lot and I couldn't possibly let go of a book AN thought was a must read. So, i ordered DoD on flipkart. My copy arrived today just in a weeks time(a huge improvement in delivery time of bridge books in India).

Dormer on deduction is about inferences in the play by both declarer and defender. I greatly enjoyed reading Mike Lawrence's "How to read your opponent's cards?" and rate that as the best bridge book I have read. But after I read the introduction, i think this book might just beat Lawrence.

Here is the first deal Dormer presents.

Dr Watson is complaining to Sherlock Holmes about how he doesn't have any luck against Moriarty. Moriarty was East in this deal defending 6S and won the opening diamond lead with the king and returned a heart. Watson won the Ace. The success of the slam hinged on the correct play in spades. Watson played low to the Ace and played a low trump on which Moriarty put up the ten. Watson finessed the Jack, the correct percentage play which lost to the doubleton queen. Eventually, Watson loses the rubber.

"Rotten luck, eh, Holmes?", asks Watson rhetorically.

"I fear, Watson", replies the great detective, "that you do not perceive the distinction between bad luck and bad management. You should have deduced that Professor Moriarty did not hold the Qxx in spades and therefore you should have gone up with the Spade King on the second round".

"When Moriarty won the first trick, why did he not play another high diamond? By forcing dummy to ruff, he could have prevented you from taking the trump finesse and made certain of defeating you if he held Qxx".

"One is reminded of the episode of the stable dog that did not bark in the night. Purely elementary, my dear Watson".

When are YOU buying your copy?

Too esoteric?

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Thu, 13 May 2010 06:43:00 +0000

Had this amusing auction yesterday practicing with Prajwal. What do you think opener has when the bidding goes this way?

Once you have an opinion of what this is, figure out what this continuation shows.

My understanding of what it should mean is below.

Opener's X is takeout. When we bid 3S and he bids 3N, we know he doesn't have spade support. If he had a minor oriented hand, say 6-5 with no interest in 3N, he would have corrected to 4C showing the minors. So, opener is interested in 3N being a contract. I think he has a hand with a long club suit and is looking at 3NT as a possible contract but he lacks a heart stopper. So, he Xed hoping we could bid 3NT. Now, that we bid 3S, he is asking us to pass 3N with a heart stopper.

This is more or less the idea behind Marty Bergen's thrump doubles.

Suppose we don't have a heart stopper and a weakish hand with spades(otherwise we would have acted over 1H), and we bid 4S. 4N obviously can't be any form of slam try because 3N was a sign-off. I therefore think 4NT would show the minors with 2 card discrepancy, mostly 6-4.

Here is what opener held.

How would you bid it?

Defense ain't easy

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Wed, 12 May 2010 13:42:00 +0000

For the next few posts, I am going to focus more on defense. I rate defense as the toughest(and the most exciting) aspect of bridge. There is no better feeling than defeating declarer in his motives by a killer switch or by breaking communication or by forcing declarer or the countless other ways of defeating a contract.

Today, I will present a defense problem at trick 9. Use the bridge movie to navigate. You are playing upside down attitude and count and 3/5 leads. What is your plan?

I will edit this post with the solutions in some days.

Levin - Weinstein win again

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Mon, 10 May 2010 15:09:00 +0000

The Cavendish Invitational 2010 ended yesterday and the US pair of Robert Levin and Steve Weinstein won the tournament again for a record 5th time together. This achievement is pretty significant as in an IMP pairs event a lot depends on luck.

Here is a good declarer effort by Bruce Rogoff against Levin - Weinstein in the final session. Levin could have defeated the contract though but it wasn't easy to see.

Somehow, most of the declarer play that get written in bulletins and books come in contracts where they shouldn't really have been. 3NT was the right contract here but 4S was the interesting one. :)

Can you see how Levin could have defeated the contract?

WTF, you ruffed a winner?

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Sun, 09 May 2010 12:50:00 +0000

Playing the 20 board monthly Junior Pairs yesterday was fun. This tournament is held on the 2nd Saturday of each month on BBO at 2330 IST. The deals for yesterday were set by bridge theorist Eric Kokish and Beverly Kraft.

Here is a fun deal from yesterday(the deal has been slightly modified so that a certain defender doesn't feel embarrassed heh)

None vulnerable, RHO is the dealer.

	NORTH ♠ Kxxxx ♥ x ♦ AKx ♣ Axxx
WEST ♠ xx ♥ xxx ♦ T654 ♣ KJ9x		EAST ♠ QJxx ♥ KQJx ♦ QJxxx ♣ void
	SOUTH ♠ Ax ♥ A9xxx ♦ x ♣ QT87x

RHO opens 1♦ and after a series of bids which might at best be described as silly, you reach the contract of 5♣ by South. LHO cracks it and 5♣X becomes the final contract.

You receive the lead of 5 of diamond, they play 3/5 leads. As you can see, we have to avoid losing 3 tricks in clubs and also ruff 3 hearts in dummy. This looks impossible to achieve. Can you make this contract?

Prajwal's dad Satya(who also has the highest WBF rank from India) found a solution. Here is what you need to do.

Win the diamond lead, play low heart to the Ace. ruff a heart, spade to the ace, ruff a heart. Now is the key play. You play the King of diamond and ruff it! Play spade to the King and ruff another diamond.

Here is the 5 card ending.

	NORTH ♠ xxx ♥ - ♦ - ♣ A5
WEST ♠ - ♥ - ♦ T ♣ KJ96		EAST ♠ QJ ♥ K ♦ QJ ♣ void
	SOUTH ♠ - ♥ 9x ♦ - ♣ QT8

Declarer needs to take 3 more tricks. So, he plays a heart and the focus shifts to West. West has two options - a) discard a diamond or b) ruff with the 6.

Let's analyze them both

a) He discards a diamond - declarer ruffs, plays Ace of club, plays a spade and discards a heart on this. Poor west has to ruff this and is end-played. So, this is not best

b) Say instead, he ruffs with the 6. Declarer should discard a spade and let West on lead. West does best to return a diamond which is ruffed in declarer's hand and the last heart is played. West is forced to ruff as declarer discards another spade from dummy. Poor west has no answers and gives up the last two tricks for a well deserved making contract.

Although, this problem was solved double dummy, It could be solved at the table if West is believed to have KJ9x of trump. Then, we know he also has at least 2 spades and 3 hearts as his partner did not open a major. Possible shapes for West are 2344 and 3334. And this line works for both.

The gains of opening light

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Wed, 05 May 2010 09:32:00 +0000

10 board team match on BBO. I am playing with Venky(RV) against Harmon Edgar and Matt Meckstroth(son of Jeff Meckstroth). Our teammates are two Argentinian stars and opponents at the other table are famous US internationals, George Jacobs and Steve Beatty.

Non-vulnerable against vulnerable, I pick up the following hand in 1st seat.

♠ AJTxx ♥ Kxx ♦ 9 ♣ QTxx

Do you open?

There are some hands that you just see and you like them. This was one of those hands. Even though it has only ten high card points, i decided to open it because of the following features.

It has a 5431 shape, which is significantly better than a 5332. The reason is when you catch a fit in your primary suit, you can almost always ruff your 4 carder suit in dummy. And when you can't you have a double fit!
It has good intermediates. Let's look at the spade suit. We have AJTxx, which is just worth 5 HCP in the Milton work count. Compare this to a suit like AQxxx which is 6 HCP but in my opinion is worse than what we had. To see this, consider that opposite xxx, the second suit gives us 4 tricks if the suit is 3-2 50% of the times(King is onside). The holding AJTxx opposite xxx, gives us 4 tricks if the suit is 3-2, 75% of the times(any one or both of KQ is onside). So, if we accept AQxxx as 6 hcps, this one should certainly also be counted as 6 hcps if not more.
We have the boss suit. When we have a spade fit, we can frequently outbid the opponents who are competing in hearts or a minor.
When we open 1S, we take away valuable competing space from them. People like to overcall at the one level with light hands but not so much at the two level. Also, we are first seat, there are two opponents and only one partner who are yet to bid. Pre-empting rates to work for us.
We are non - vulnerable against vulnerable. This is the best time to open light, even if you catch a total misfit, land up in a horrible 3NT, you still only lose 50s.

To verify my hypothesis, i checked with the Kaplan - Rubens evaluator and they suggest this is worth 12.15. 12.15 is not even a light opener. Also note that K-R doesn't take into account the last 3 factors.

Okay, so the auction continues. Pass by Matt on my left, 4♣ splinter by Venky and X by RHO. I didn't ask what X was. 4♣ by Venky is a try for slam. It says that he has short clubs and at least 4 card support for my suit. Since, I had a minimum and also values in clubs, I didn't want to encourage partner and bid 4♠(A pass/cue/RDBL would be encouraging). Matt doubled this and that became the final contract.

Here are the 4 hands.

	NORTH ♠ KQ98x ♥ T98xx ♦ KT ♣ x
WEST ♠ xxx ♥ A ♦ AQxxx ♣ 9xxx		EAST ♠ - ♥ QJxx ♦ Jxxxx ♣ AKJx
	SOUTH ♠ AJTxx ♥ Kxx ♦ 9 ♣ QTxx

Matt led this stiff Ace of heart and shifted to a club. Harmon won and gave his partner a ruff. Since, East had no more entries, there were no more ruffs and the result was 1 down and hence -100 for NS.

At the other table, Steve Beatty chose to pass my hand. West opened his hand a very light precision 1♦! North overcalled 1♠ as East made a negative double. South now bid 4♦ splinter, which was passed by West and george bid 4♠. East doubled for takeout and West bid 5♣. West should really have bid 4NT giving his partner the choice of minors. But anyway, 5♣ was doubled by Steve and they retreated to 5♦ doubled redoubled.

5♦ makes via a ruffing finesse in hearts to get rid of a club loser. Lose one diamond and one club.

Two lessons

a) Opening 1♠ made it difficult for EW to get in. West couldn't overcall at the 2 level on that rotten suit. Venky jammed up the bidding with 4♣ and it was very difficult for E-W to reach their contract of 5♦.

b) There is no substitute to judgement in hand evaluation. And this really is the basis of my objection to approaches to opening hand based solely on the Milton work count or the rule of 20 or rule of 21.5 etc.

Don't RKC with a void

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Wed, 05 May 2010 09:16:00 +0000

In bridge, there are a lot of "rules" which serve as good guidelines in general. But is very important to understand why these rules exist and not follow it blindly because every not every guideline works everytime.

Since we are on this topic, it is worth quoting Fred Gitelman's rule of 2, which he recently posted on bridgebase forums. According to fred, there are only 2 reliable rules in bridge - The rule of 11 and the Fred's rule of 2. Ha!

One such rule that is often taught to intermediates is to not ask for Aces with a void. This is good advice in general.

Suppose you have ♠KJxx ♥AKxxx ♦- ♣KQxx and partner opens 1♠ .Your hand is very good for partner and you want to play in at least slam. But you want to check if you aren't off two aces. Partner could have ♠QTxxx ♥QJ ♦AKx ♣Jxx for example. So, you are tempted to use 4NT as asking Aces, but this might not be very useful as you don't care about partner holding the diamond Ace. Partner will respond one Ace with both ♠QTxxx ♥QJ ♦AKx ♣Jxx and ♠QTxxx ♥QJ ♦Kxx ♣AJx. You want to be in slam opposite the second hand but not the first hand. To overcome this problem, any experienced player would avoid bidding 4NT and either use cue-bids or exclusion blackwood to place the contract.

However, today's deal from the Australian National Open teams final this year is an example of an exception to this rule.

As you can see, 7♦ is on ice. But NS couldn't find that. The culprit in my opinion is the ill-timed exclusion blackwood. South showed 3 keycards outside spades presumably and north didn't have enough space to inquire further.

A simple good old 4NT would have got NS to grand slam. North could have employed 4NT because he does care about the spade Ace. The spade Ace eliminates a heart loser and hence is as valuable as the heart king. If you ask using 4NT, partner will show 4 keycards(via let's say 5C) and you can immediately count 12 tricks. Since partner only showed 15 hcps(3 aces and a king), and we know from his opening that he has 20-21, he still has at least 5 hcps spare. Thus, he could easily have the spade king or the heart king or the club Jack or doubleton club. Any of these gives us the 13th trick. So, you next ask kings. Partner will show spade king and you bid 7D. Easy!

It is worth noting that 4NT is not best either. But it happens to work on this deal. Sometimes, partner might have ♠KJxx ♥AKQx ♦KJx ♣Axx. Again, grand is cold but we won't reach there after bidding 4NT and partner shows 3 keycards. For all we know, partner might be missing the heart or club Ace. But it is still better than bidding 5S as exclusion.

In my opinion, there is a lot to be said about cue-bidding your way to grand slam here. It would help here if you just cue-bid Aces in the first round.

Crocodile coup

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:33:00 +0000

A crocodile coup in bridge is defined as the play of a card higher than what seems necessary by the 2nd hand during defense. This is necessary sometimes in order to avoid blockage or in order to avoid an end-play. In today's deal, the defense needs to employ the Crocodile coup in order to defeat declarer.

IMPs, Nobody vulnerable, South holds ♠8x ♥AQ ♦KT98xxx ♣8x. West deals and passes. RHO opens 1♠ as partner passes. South tries a pre-emptive 3♦. LHO bids 3♠ and opener raises to 4♠ and is allowed to play there.

West	North	East	South
Pass	Pass	1♠	3♦
3♠	Pass	4♠	Pass
Pass	Pass

South leads the 8 of clubs and sees the following dummy.

♠ AT9x
♥ JT9xx
♦ Jxx
♣ Q

The 8 of clubs goes to the Queen, King and Ace of the declarer. Declarer plays a low club and ruffs it in dummy. He then plays a spade to the Queen, both defenders following small. The 9 of clubs is ruffed in dummy with the ten of spade as you discard a diamond. The Ace of spade is next cashed as partner contributes the Jack. At this point, we know declarer started with ♠KQxxx and at least 3 clubs.

Declarer next plays a low diamond to the Queen, which you win as partner follows with low diamond. Noting that declarer has no entries to dummy, you play back a diamond which is won by declarer's Ace. We now know declarer had 5 spades and 2 diamonds. Hearts and clubs could be 3-3 or 2-4. You know declarer has to give you 2 heart tricks but that makes it only 3 tricks for the defense. If he is Kxx in hearts, there is nothing we can do to defeat him. He gets a heart trick by force. If he is Kx and has a losing club, then we can get him down.

Declarer now cashes two rounds of spade as partner discards a heart and a club. Next declarer exits in a low heart. We need to hope that declarer has a losing club to provide the 4th trick for the defense but wait, if we win the Queen of heart, we are end-played! We have to lead a diamond and dummy's Jack wins a trick.

So, to defeat this contract, need to hope partner has the heart king and the winning club. So, you play the Ace of heart executing the crocodile coup. Next, you play the Queen of heart and are pleased to no end when partner overtakes with the king and cashes the winning Jack of club!

This is the sort of thing that looks pretty easy but is often missed at the table in auto-mode. Let's look at the complete deal(rotated so that South is declarer)

	NORTH ♠ AT9x ♥ JT9xx ♦ Jxx ♣ Q
WEST ♠ 8x ♥ AQ ♦ KT9xxxx ♣ 8x		EAST ♠ Jx ♥ Kxxx ♦ x ♣ KJxxxx
	SOUTH ♠ KQxxx ♥ xx ♦ AQ ♣ AT9x

Declarer misplayed the hand, after ruffing one club and removing two rounds of trump, he can simply play the ten of clubs discarding a diamond in dummy executing a loser on loser play. The 9 of club would be good now for another diamond discard and hence the losing diamond can be ruffed in dummy. This does require trumps to be 2-2.

The other line is to ruff three club tricks in dummy. This requires a few things to be taken care of because spades cannot be used as an entry to hand. Ruff a club, low diamond to the Ace, ruff a club, diamond to the Queen. Win the return, use diamond ruff as an entry in hand and ruff the last club. This works when spades are 2-2 or 3-1, the premptor having the singleton.

A sign-off?

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 15:19:00 +0000

Here is a fun hand-dealt board from the Pairs qualification round of the Karnataka state bridge championships.

MPs, vul against not-vul, you hold AKQxxx Qxxx Qx A. Nice hand, you say? Wait, it gets better! RHO passes and you open a routine 1S playing standard 2/1. LHO passes and partner bids a game forcing 2H. RHO bids 2NT showing minors and you decide to show your awesome hand by bidding 4C - a splinter in support of hearts. LHO bids 5C and partner bids 6H. RHO bids 7C. Your call?

Obviously, the question is whether we should bid 7 or not. Let's try to figure out what partner has. He showed 5 carder hearts with a game forcing hand. He seems to have liked my splinter. Surely, 6H was bid to play. So, he must have diamond first round control. Does he have clubs controlled as well? Given that we have Ace, it is unlikely that he has a void in clubs. Moreover, he didn't bid 6C which would have shown a grand try with a void. So, he must be banking on my singleton club.

We rate to have lots of tricks via club ruffs and spade suit. So, the only question is do we have all the controls. Surely, Ace of club is the only thing partner is missing! So, bid 7H!

Partner's hand was J9x AKJTxxx A xx and grand is cold.

Some people suggested that partner should have bid 5D over 5C to confirm a diamond Ace and looking for first round control in clubs. I don't like this approach. I would rather use 5D as a general last train slam try on this auction.

Opposite partner's club singleton, you know you want to play in 6H so just bid it. And if partner does happen to have first round control in clubs, he will know to bid 7H. The trickier case is when lets say partner splintered and we hold the Ace in the suit. Now, 7 might be a possibility if partner holds the Ace of diamond. So, bid 6C confirming first round control in clubs. Partner will know you are looking for diamond Ace. I guess it goes without saying that you should have good reason to believe they aren't cashing the first two diamonds to bid this way.

One friend i talked to said he would "never" bid 7 if partner punts 6H like this and if someone did this to him as partner, they won't be playing anymore! I found this pretty ridiculous. 6H is not a sign-off. It's a descriptive bid!

Crazy juniors

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:23:00 +0000

White house juniors invitational is a very prestigious junior tournament held every year in Amsterdam. Was kibitzing the following hand in the Israel vs Italy semi final match, which i thought was interesting.

Put yourself in the shoes of the Italian South(direction changed for better readability), Montanari. All vulnerable, you pick up ♠ xx ♥ KJTxx ♦ K6xx ♣ KQ. Partner deals and opens 1♦. RHO passes and you bid the routine 1♥. LHO comes in with 1♠ as partner jumps to 3♥. This is passed by LHO and you decide to bid a questionable 4♣. Partner responds 4♦ and you launch RKC and place the contract in 6♥ after partner shows 3 Aces.

West	North	East	South
	1♦	Pass	1♥
1♠	3♥	Pass	4♣
Pass	4♦	Pass	4N
Pass	5♣	Pass	6♥

Lead: A♣

Contract: 6♥ by South

♠ AQJ9

♥ A9xx

♦ AT9x

♣ x

♠ xx

♥ KJTxx

♦ K6xx

♣ KQ

On the lead of Ace of clubs, RHO plays the Jack of club as you drop the King. LHO continues 4 of club, you discard a diamond as RHO plays the 7. How do you play?

Montanari won the club return, finessed the spade Queen. Played Ace of heart and small heart to the Ten! which won as LHO discarded a club. He removed the last trump and took another spade finesse as RHO followed. Here is the double dummy situation.

	NORTH ♠ A9 ♥ x ♦ AT9 ♣
WEST ♠ KT ♥ - ♦ QJ8x ♣ -		EAST ♠ - ♥ - ♦ x ♣ Lots of clubs
	SOUTH ♠ - ♥ Jx ♦ K6xx ♣ -

South next played a trump to the Jack, west discarding a diamond. When South played the last trump, West is simple squeezed. And hence a slam that required the correct view in hearts, a finesse in spades and a diamond - spade squeeze came home. What a crazy overbid but well played hand.

One might think this would be a 13 IMP swing in favor of the Italians, right? Wrong! The other table bids and makes 6♥ as well making this a push. In fact, only one table out of the 4 tables in the semi-final played this deal in 4. The France2 declarer Aymeric Lebatteux also brought home the contract but the task was easier for him as Thomas Bessis led his singleton trump!

Juniors are crazy, I tell ya!

An extension to smith echo

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:39:00 +0000

Lots of good partnerships play what is popularly known as a Smith Echo signal against no trump. It applies when a lead of a small card is made from length and declarer wins the first trick. At trick 2, when declarer plays a suit, the card played by both defenders is attitude in the original suit. Also, smith echo applies only when count is not of much importance. Example, when dummy has a long suit and no other entry, forget Smith, show count so that partner knows how many rounds to duck the suit.

Smith echo is very useful in some deals but in my opinion it is not mandatory. But if you do play smith echo, please decide whether you are are going to encourage the lead or discourage it before you turn over the first trick. Also, if you want to give count in some suit, instead of smith, identify those suits as well. The reason is that variation in tempo in smith echo sends clear unauthorized information(UI) to partner. A slow encouraging signal says "Your lead was OK" as against an in tempo signal which says "I liked your lead".

Anyway, this post in not about Smith Echo. It's about a new idea which i think makes some sense. Consider the alternative case when partner leads a small card against no trump and dummy appears to be winning the trick. The card you play is usually attitude. For example, if declarer puts the King from dummy, and you have the Queen, you might want to show it to partner.

Now, when declarer plays a suit, what does the card played on this mean? I am guessing the standard treatment(at least for the partner of leader) must be to show count in current suit since attitude is already known.

There are some situations where a count in original suit led might be of importance. Example, consider the following layout of cards

	♠ K
♠ A98xxx		♠ JTxx
	♠ Qx

On the lead of a low spade, dummy plays King and east plays the Jack. When West gets in with a side entry, he knows partner has the Ten. If partner has 4 cards, clearly spades are cashing. But if partner has 3 cards, he might have to find a safe exit and hope for partner to regain the lead and play back spade.

In these situations therefore, it might make sense for east to signal count in original suit. What do you think?

The principle of captaincy

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:06:00 +0000

It amazes me how such simple bidding concepts like captaincy is so widely misunderstood. We will look at a few places where the principle of captaincy applies.

a) Splinter bids

Most players know what a splinter bid is. What people don't understand is that it is a statement and it relinquishes control to partner. A splinter says "Partner, i have a good hand with good support for your suit. I don't have enough strength to bid slam. But i have shortness in this suit which might be useful. So, if you have no wastage in this suit, we might make a slam with less than usual values. Also, if you have undisclosed extras, feel free to take control and take us to slam"

You make a splinter bid and you are done. It's now over to partner to decide what to do next. If he rebids his suit, you just pass in tempo. It's that easy. A splinter is not a tool to bid all slams with shortness. It's a tool to bid well fitting slams. I see people all the time splintering and then tanking after partner's rebid of suit. This is just plain wrong in my opinion.

A splinter bid should therefore be very well defined and have a narrow range so that partner can judge accurately.

b) Pre - empts

Have you seen the following auctions. My partners have pulled these on me.

2♠ - (p) - p - (X)
3♠ - (X) all pass

2♠ - (p) - 3♠ - (4♥)
4♠ - (p) - p - (X)
all pass

Once you pre-empt, you give up control to partner. So, just pass unless forced to bid by partner. Partner's raise is not invitational. He could have anything between 0 points to whatever strength he considers as not GF. It is pre-emptive or sometimes tactical. If he needed your cooperation, he would have used a forcing raise.

In my view, both the above auctions are as bizarre as bidding 1NT - 3NT - 6NT!

But as they say, never say never in bridge. Some times it is indeed appropriate to break these rules but those instances are rare.

Two hands from today

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 17:26:00 +0000

The first one i played with vicky. None vulnerable, you hold void QJxx QJ7xxx 98x. LHO opens a weak 2S and partner overcalls 2NT. Your call?

The second one is from the White House top circuit pairs finals. Mieke Wortel holding xxx void QTxx A7xxxx hears LHO open 2H! and partner overcall 2NT. Weird? 2H is either weak 2 in spade or strong with clubs or some strong balanced hand. Your call?

I chose to bid 3C stayman(?) intending to bid 3NT over 3D but vicky for some reason bid 3NT. 3NT made easily. Vicky had AQxx AK Kxx QJTx. Admittedly a little heavy for 2NT.

At the White House TC, Mieke Wortel passed 2NT. Partner had KJx KQxx Kx QJTx. Very light for 2NT and still 3NT would have made. Heart Ten was led. Heart Ace and King of clubs are both onside. 3NT would make easily(6 clubs, 2 hearts, 1 diamond).

Han Peters on vugraph commented that in such hands 2NT is seldom the right contract as it is very unlikely that you make exactly 8 tricks when holding such a hand. I agree.

Strange coincidence that we were dealt such similar hands in a similar bidding on the same day! Anyway for now, Mohitz 1, Mieke Wortel 0. :)

Weekend reading

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:38:00 +0000

Some reading material from the web for this weekend.

The six of spades

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:36:00 +0000

Here is another fun hand from this week's BBO juniors tournament. Sad that we were defending this hand instead of playing it. The declarer at our table went -1. See, if you can do better!

Sitting South and playing IMPs, vul against not, you pick up ♠ AQJx ♥ AT9x ♦ Qx ♣ Qxx. Playing 2/1 with weak NT, partner passes. RHO opens 1♥ and you decide to overcall 1NT. Lefty passes and partner bids 2♣ stayman. RHO comes in with 2♦. For some reason, you decide to pass. The auction continues, pass, X for takeout, 3♦ and now you bid 3♠ which is raised to 4♠ and becomes the final contract.

West	North	East	South
	Pass	1♥	1NT
Pass	2♣!	2♦	Pass
Pass	X!	3♦	3♠
Pass	4♠	(All pass)

Lead ♦9, 3/5th
Contract: 4♠ by South

♠ K964
♥ Kx
♦ 8x
♣ AJxxx

♠ AQJ7
♥ AT9x
♦ Qx
♣ Qxx

RHO takes the Ace and returns the diamond trey to the King. Lefty returns 8♥, small, Jack, Ace. You play the Ace of spade and righty discards a low diamond. How do you play?

We know so far that the righty holds the club King because of his opening. Because lefty preferred diamonds over hearts and because of the sequence of play we also know that RHO started with QJxxx in hearts and nothing in spades. His likely distribution is either - QJxxx ATxxx Kxx or - QJxxx ATxxxx Kx. The first hand seems unlikely because righty took three bids. And in any case, if he holds the first hand, we will be able to make only 1 club trick as lefty will ruff the 3rd round, which in turn would mean we need to make 7 trump tricks which is impossible.

So, we have no choice but to play for the second layout. Play small club to the Jack and King. Win the heart return in dummy, play low club to the Queen and back a club to the Ace. Ruff a club high in hand as lefty discards her last diamond.

Here is the 4 card ending. You need to win all the tricks. South is on lead

	NORTH ♠ K96 ♥ - ♦ - ♣ x
WEST ♠ T85x ♥ - ♦ - ♣ -		EAST ♠ - ♥ Qx ♦ Tx ♣ -
	SOUTH ♠ J7 ♥ T9 ♦ - ♣ -

Play heart and overruff in dummy, ruff club High, overruff heart in dummy and claim the last high trump.

Neat? Don't forget to thank partner for his ♠6! :)

Dizzy heights

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:31:00 +0000

Playing in the BBO Juniors weekly tournament is always fun. Here is a fun hand from yesterday.

Sitting South, playing IMPs, all vulnerable you hold ♠ QJ9x ♥ QT98xx ♦ Jx ♣ 6

The bidding goes, pass on your left, 1♥ by partner which is doubled by RHO. What do you bid?

I am a firm believer of preempting to the limit to give opponents the least room to find out the best contract for them.

4♥ is probably the 'normal' bid here but it didn't feel right. LHO could bid a suit easily, X with 3 suited hand, 4NT with two suited hand and get his hand type across conveniently. Also, if i bid 4♥ and it comes back to me in 5m, I have another difficult decision to make. I don't think I am going to let them play in 5m. So, instead of bidding 5♥ when they have exchanged lots of information, it's much better to just bid it right away.

This will work badly only if they were going to pass 4♥ and 4 makes but 5 doesn't. But IMO this doesn't rate to happen much.

So, i bid 5♥. Lefty and partner passes. RHO now bids 6♣ which is the final contract.

Here is the full hand

	NORTH ♠ K ♥ AKJxxx ♦ Kx ♣ QT9x
WEST ♠ T8xxxx ♥ x ♦ 96xx ♣ xx		EAST ♠ Ax ♥ - ♦ AQT8x ♣ AKJxxx
	SOUTH ♠ QJ9x ♥ QT9xxx ♦ Jx ♣ x

The par contract is 5♥ doubled for -200. EW can make a game in diamonds but not in clubs. Fortunately for EW, dummy doesn't have a single entry and 6D wouldn't make either.

Though it is possible that one belongs in spades but still I don't agree with my RHO's decision to X with that hand. I would bid 2NT(if available) intending to rebid some number of clubs hence showing 6-5 or more. If spades were Axx, I would have probably Xed as well. If he had bid 2NT, my bid would still be 5H but now RHO can bid 6C and lefty can convert to 6D which plays better than 6C but is still down.

The right time to do things

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 05:38:00 +0000

Sitting south in IMPs, none vulnerable, you pick up ♠ Kx ♥ A98xx ♦ K9x ♣ K7x

RHO deals and opens 1♦. You try 1♥. Lefty passes and partner bids 2♦ showing a limit raise or better in hearts, You bid 3NT as a choice of game and partner corrects to 4♥ and that ends the auction.

Lead ♣4
Contract: 4♥ by South

♠ QJT
♥ KQx
♦ Jx
♣ AJTxx

♠ Kx
♥ A98xx
♦ K9x
♣ K7x

On the lead of low club, you put the ten which holds. How do you play?

The first thing to notice is that we have 27 high card points. Given that RHO opened the bidding, he surely has both the missing Aces and very likely to have both the missing queens. Also, since lefty didn't lead diamond, the lead is likely a singleton.

If trump breaks 3-2, the contract is cold. We just have 1 spade loser and 2 diamond losers. If trump breaks 4-1, trump length is very likely with lefty. So, now we have one loser in hearts as well taking the total loser count to 4. To make the contract, we can set up spades to get a diamond discard. But before doing that, we need to remove at least 3 rounds of trumps. Because otherwise, RHO can get in with spade Ace, give partner a ruff, come back in with diamond ace and give partner another ruff.

So we remove three rounds of trump ending in hand, RHO indeed showing out on the second heart, pitching a low diamond and a spade. At this point, it is known that RHO's distribution is most likely 4144 or 3154. Also, since LHO has the Jack of hearts RHO is either Axxx x AQxx Q98x or Axx x AQxxx Q98x.

So, now what remains to be done is to get rid of the diamond loser. You play the King of spade which is ducked to deny you an easy entry to dummy later.

The position now is

♠ QJ
♥ -
♦ Jx
♣ AJxx

♠ x
♥ 98
♦ K9x
♣ K7

Now, the declarer has to be careful. If he continues spade, RHO will win Ace and back Ace of diamond followed by Queen of diamond and the declarer will be rendered helpless. LHO will get in with this Jack of trumps and cash a diamond to set you.

How do you proceed?

So, you decide to play the last trump, discarding a low club from dummy and RHO pitches a small spade. It is now known he is exactly Axxx x AQxx Q98x. LHO returns diamond to the Ace and RHO backs the Queen as expected. The position now is

♠ QJ
♥ -
♦ -
♣ AJx

♠ x
♥ 8
♦ 9
♣ K7

RHO is down to ♠ A ♥ - ♦ x ♣ Q98. Now, you play the last trump discarding the Queen of spade from dummy and RHO is helpless. He cannot throw a club as then the declarer can cash dummy's clubs. He cannot throw the Ace of spade of course. So, he pitches his last diamond. Declarer cashes King of club and throws RHO in with a spade to enjoy the last two tricks.

I LOVED this hand. This hand requires lots of things. Visualizing opponents' cards, timing the hand correctly and then a squeeze endplay.

BTW, RHO can defeat this contract. Can you see how?

Concealed game tries

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:07:00 +0000

These days I am reading up on the Ambra bidding system, which has lots of interesting bidding ideas. Ambra was designed by Italian superstar Benito Garozzo to be used by the Italian junior team. (The link to Ambra can be found on Dan Neil's website)

One bidding idea that I really liked are game tries. In Ambra, after the start 1M - 2M, opener asks responder to bid a suit in which he would have accepted a help suit game try. Responder can signoff in 3M with an absolute minimum. With a good hand, he shows the suit where he has values. Opener now can judge how well the hands fit and place the contract.

This has the obvious advantage in that declarer's hand is concealed when responder has a minimum and when opener rejects the invitation.
Here is what Garozzo recommends in Ambra after a 1H - 2H start

2S = asks responder for suit in which he would have accepted a game try
2N = spade shortness, game try
3C = club shortness, game try
3D = diamond shortness, game try
3H = asking for help in trumps, game try
3S = 6+ hearts, 5+ spades, slam interest
3N = choice of game
4m = 5/5, slam interest

You know you are making the contract when...

noreply@blogger.com (mohitz) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 15:58:00 +0000

BBO is an awesome place. I love the fact that you can see top players playing and even play against them if lucky. The free vugraph is too valuable as well. Today morning, I was watching the Slava Cup broadcast being held in Moscow. Slava cup is a IMP Pairs tournament but every pair plays a match of 8 boards against every other pair. The special thing about the tournament is that it is a invitation only tournament. 16 pairs from mostly Europe are playing this tournament.

While watching the match of Zia-Welland against Fu-Zhong, Welland was declaring a 3NT which had no defense. At trick 3, Fu tanked for a long time. David Greenwood from Ireland made an interesting comment about how players always think the most when there is no defense.

On the face of it, it seems like it should be easier when there is no defense but this isn't necessarily true. The way people defend most contracts is they try to figure out possible distributions that the declarer could have and try to cater to them. Once, the defender finds 2-3 distributions on which he could defeat the contract, he defends so as to maximize his odds of defeating the contract. But when there exists no defense, it must be harder to find possible distributions which defeat the contract and hence the defender thinks for longer. So, this is most natural.

So, the popular adage that when the defenders think for too long, you might have some trouble is not necessarily true. Now, there's an interesting thought.

You know you are making the contract when the defender tanks too long! :)